I swear, out of the blue the past few days, Dahlia has learned to snap her fingers, open doors (she can reach the knob! gah!) and give kisses. She still refuses to say anything word-like other than ma-ma and goat, though. She understands full sentences like "go to the bed and get me your sippycup" and "put all those cans in the cabinet" but she just won't talk! I'm mildly worried but also enthralled to know that she understands stuff even if she's not using words.

Poopiebaby reached out and grabbed a toy for the first time on Saturday, and today he held a teething rattle all by himself! Also, he is a professional tummy-to-back roller now. He's been rolling for a few weeks, but it would take him a minute to figure out how to do it. Now, when he's tired of being on his tummy, he props himself straight up on his arms, falls to the side and rolls over in one smooth motion. I fear the day he learns to go from back to tummy, because he will be all over the place!

zelda is all over the waving & high fives, but she has now started adding some sounds to the gestures -- basically, saying what WE say when we wave or high five. so! high fives are accompanied by something like "high five!" & waving is accompanied by something like "hi zelda!"

So the Emperor's been on time or a little early with all of his milestones... EXCEPT gestures. He started sort of waving a month or two ago (around his first birthday), started clapping three days ago, and pointed for the first time today (at 13 months old).

He is really psyched about the clapping, though. Now he claps whenever he's even a little excited. It's really funny, especially when he starts clapping while he's nursing.

coldandsleepy, clapping while nursing is just about the cutest thing! I'm constantly impressed by the unconditional love babies have for boobies.

I'm loving these baby updates!!!

Zora is starting to laugh. The other day she said "hee hee hee" instead of her usual "huh huh huh." I totally melted. She is also scooting around and rolling a little bit.

I'm super stoked for my sister to have her baby- any day now. It will be great to have babies so close in age- I've never been that close to my sister. We had a lot to talk about during our pregnancies and it will be even neater to be able to raise our babies together.

Hope you are all having a great Friday night- I am spending mine chopping veggies for stir fry. :)

Yay for your sister! I hope you'll post when she has her baby! My sister has a son who is 3 weeks older than mine. I was initially PISSED when she told me she was pregnant... boring story even more boring, I had been trying, she hadn't, and I felt like she was trying to upstage me. But you know what? I loved loved loved talking to her during my pregnancy and she is the number one person I call and text now that our kids are on the outside. We have gotten really close, all just because we did the nasty around the same time, heh.

coldandsleepy- my sister had been trying to get pregnant for YEARS and I thought that with my endometriosis that I couldn't have kids. The night after my sister called to tell me she was finally pregnant, I had a dream that I was too. I thought I was just feeling her pregnancy, vicariously or something, then morning sickness hit me like a train, I took a few tests and called to tell her the news. I thought she'd be pissed, but she wasn't. Then she miscarried a few weeks later and I spent the next few months feeling like I had no right to be carrying a baby I hadn't tried so hard for like she had. She gave me a bunch of things, like a nursing bra and a boppy, and I felt awful because I knew she'd bought them for herself. I didn't bring up my pregnancy unless she would initiate it, and my family and I would just tiptoe around her. Anyhow, she obviously conceived again and has been through so much- an incompetent cervix, bed rest for the last three months, etc. We're all heaving a sigh of relief now that hr baby is almost here. I am so excited that we'll be able to raise our kids together- she's having a girl too! It's been neat to see the changes it's wrought in our personalities- she's grown much softer and easier to approach, I've become a little more assertive and confident with all the adversity my ex and his family have thrown at me. So now we're so much more alike and it's great! It will be so awesome to be mothers together!

My husband's auntie just phoned. Her grandson (poopiebaby's second cousin), who was all over poopiebaby at a family gathering yesterday, broke out with chickenpox today. I'm taking deep breaths and trying not to panic, but I'm still worried. Please tell me not to freak out?

Thanks you guys. If nothing else, at least you've made me feel better about freaking out, since my husband seems to think it's the best thing ever. I agree that it's better for him to get them while he's young, but 16 weeks is way TOO young for my taste. Ugh ugh ugh. I guess I will know for sure in 10 to 21 days (OH GOD, please don't make me fly home with a sick baby).

Having Brenna is sort of like having a first kid again. Caitlin didn't go through half the stages of rolling over, crawling, etc because she was so colicky, I almost never could put her down. She went from sitting to walking. So it's super amazing to me that Brenna rolls over now! And she likes it! And she enjoys hanging out on the floor playing with her toys or in the crib. Except she's a bit more cranky these days now that the top two teeth are coming in. She's about to look like a hamster.

Hi- jumping in, long time lurker. I have my legumes- the lentil is 6 and is AWESOME. I love six. I wish all kids were six, always. He's all about discovering and playing secret games with lots of whispering and science and reading chapter books and then re-enacting his favorite scenes. I love six. His little brother, the peanut, is 3 and reminds me constantly how hard it is to be a good parent. Or even an adequate parent. The peanut is a physical, sugar-loving, attention-grabbing soy-ham. He's incredible in his own way, but lately his incredible-ness has manifested in all sorts of creative ways to ask for a go at his Halloween candy. Things like taking two bites of a perfectly dinner, stating he's full, waiting about a beat, then asking for dessert. In his world, every activity would be better with Halloween candy, and I have to confess, I generally agree. Few things in life aren't enhanced by candy.

So, hi. And a pox on the pox- I hope that poopiebaby is holding his own against the dreaded pox. That's awful.